> In this case, you might want to conditionally assign some reasonable > value on failure. Say: > > tput -T $TERM init >/dev/null 2>&1 || export TERM=xterm > > 'tset -q' is another test which can be used. The remote host's $TERM variable is in fact xterm. When I connect to the screen session the $TERM variable is 'screen'. I think it's because I'm opening a new ssh session in each screen window. Not a huge deal; I mainly use this for short commands, and if I need to run something longer I just write it all out in a text editor and paste it into the terminal.